Overview

The News & Observer is produced using 2 flexographic presses (ColorMax model) manufactured by KBA North America (York, Pennsylvania). Each press is comprised of 9 printing units capable of producing 8 newspaper pages. Consequently, each press is capable of printing 72 pages divided into four newspaper sections. Up to 32 of the 72 pages can be in full color. The presses are 3 stories tall (28 1/2 feet), approximately 82 feet long and each of the two press lines weighs 501.3 tons. They are each powered by 10-60 horsepower electric motors.

Unlike other printing processes such as letterpress and offset which use largely petroleum-based inks, our flexographic presses employ water-based inks. The inks are composed of mostly water, acrylic resin and pigments. While petroleum-based inks never actually dry and they rub off on the hands of the readers, flexographic inks dry almost immediately upon contact with the paper and do not rub off at all under ordinary circumstances.

While printing, the presses might typically produce at a rate of 50,000 newspapers per hour. This puts the paper moving through the presses at a rate of about 1,528 feet per minute or just over 17 miles per hour. The maximum printing speed is 70,000 newspapers per hour which puts the paper moving at a rate of 2,139 feet per minute or about 24 miles per hour.

The printing plates are composed of a steel substrate coated with a polymer, which is sensitive to ultraviolet light. Each plate is .022 inches thick (22 thousandths). Ultraviolet light is used to expose the image of the page onto the plates and the plates are then processed and put on the press to print the newspaper. The actual printing process is achieved by rotating the cylinder on which the plates are mounted. The plates pick up ink from a special anilox roller on one side of their rotation and on the other side they make direct contact with the newsprint as it moves through the press to produce the image on paper. It works very much like a self-inking, rotary rubber stamp. Three processors can each produce about 80 plates per hour. A 56-page newspaper containing 10 pages of full color requires 344 plates. Of the 344 plates, 120 would be used to print the color pages.

The News & Observer uses approximately 315,000 plates per year to produce the newspaper. In one year it also consumes approximately 30,500 tons of newsprint, 600,000 lbs. of black ink and 618,000 lbs. of color ink. To give you an example, the News & Observer consumes enough newsprint per year to circle the globe at the equator 10 times with ample left over to more than stretch from Raleigh to Los Angeles .... and back ... with some to spare. About 50% of our newspaper is made from recycled old newspapers.